Tempers Flare in Rockies Win Over Atlanta
The Colorado Rockies and Atlanta Braves met on Thursday night with the Rockies winning 10-3, but the highlight of the game for many fans was the late game scrum.
Corey Dickerson hit Gerald Laird the Atlanta catcher with his backswing after swinging at a pitch. Tempers quickly got the best of the players starting a tense period that lead to a number of ejections.
The incident took place in the eighth inning with the Rockies ahead 8-3. A pitch was fouled off by Dickerson and his bat ended up knocking off the facemask of Laird.
Dickerson said the pitch was a slider with two strikes and his backswing hit Laird, but he said it was unintentional and thought the other players would know that.
Laird was stunned and lay on the ground for several minutes prior to walking off under his own power. He was replaced in the lineup by Evan Gattis.
Fredi Gonzalez the manager of the Brave said Laird was okay. Doctors performed concussion tests and he was cleared to fly home to Atlanta. Gonzalez said the bac
kswing hit Laird on the jaw more than it did on the head.
On the very next pitch, David Carpenter a reliever for the Braves hits Dickerson and was immediately ejected.
Walt Weiss the manager for Colorado bolted out of the dugout and started to yell at Carpenter and in the direction of the Atlanta bench and Gonzalez.
Jordan Baker the umpire at home plate had to hold Weiss back before ejecting him.
Weiss said afterwards that you do not have a clue if you think you can first foul a pitch off and then hit the catcher on purpose.
Carpenter denied he threw intentionally at Dickerson.
The next inning, Nick Masset a reliever for the Rockies hit Gattis with a pitch. Masset and Tom Runnells a bench coach for Colorado were both tossed at that time.
The game was the first win of this season for Colorado pitcher Jhoulys Chacin who is now 1-4. He was helped by home runs from Justin Morneau and Charlie Blackmon.
Blackmon’s home run was his 12th of the season. All of his homers have been while batting first in the lineup, which leads baseball, and is the most ever by a Rockies player from that spot in the lineup.
Morneau hit his 11th home run of the season in the sixth over the wall in center landing in the bullpen of Atlanta.
The Rockies moved out to an 8-0 lead in the seventh with five runs. Atlanta scored their three runs on the night during the eighth prior to the incident with Dickerson in the bottom half of the inning.
Atlanta is home to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday, while Colorado visits the San Francisco Giants on the West Coast.
Atlanta with the loss stayed one game behind the first place Washington Nationals in the National League East. Colorado with the win stayed 11 ½ games behind the Giants in the NL West. This weekend the Rockies hope to cut into that Giants lead with three games on the Bay.
